Jewish Zionist Leader. Founder of Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization of America. She was the daughter of Rabbi Benjamin Szold and Sophie Schaar Szold who emigrated from Hungary in 1859. Her father taught her the Jewish texts and languages. She and her father would also assist new immigrants mainly from Russia, and she developed her Zionist ideas about the creation of a Jewish community in Palestine. She was the only female member of the Jewish Publication Society where she worked for 22 years. After her father's death in 1902 she went to NYC and attended the Jewish Theological Seminary to edit her father's papers, she was accepted with the condition she would not seek rabbinical ordination. Here she met Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, and developed a friendship, and romantic interest - she was 13 years his senior, and was devasted when he proposed to eighteen-year-old Adele Katzenstein. To recover the loss of Ginzberg, she and her mother traveled to Palestine, and she threw herself more deeply into the work of improving health conditions by having Hadassah fund hospitals, a medical school, dental facilities, x-ray clinics, infant welfare stations, soup kitchens and other services for Palestine's Jewish and Arab inhabitants. From 1920 on she would spent the majority of her life in Palestine, only returning to the states for brief visits. She also oversaw a youth group which managed to the placement of children arriving in Palestine from Nazi Germany, and other countires. She was honored on the Five Lira note issued by the Bank of Israel between 1976 and 1984. In 2007, Szold was inducted into the American National Women's Hall of Fame. (bio by: Donna)